To whom, in their
respective turns, till he at length came for whom she was reserved,
she carried herself with so much evenness of temper, such courteous
freedom, guarded with the strictest modesty, that as it gave
encouragement or ground of hopes to none, so neither did it
administer any matter of offence or just cause of complaint to any.
But such as were thus either engaged for themselves or desirous to
make themselves advocates for others, could not, I observed, but
look upon me with an eye of jealousy and fear, that I would improve
the opportunities I had by frequent and familiar conversation with
her, to my own advantage, in working myself into her good opinion
and favour, to the ruin of their pretences.
According therefore to the several kinds and degrees of their fears
of me, they suggested to her parents their ill surmises against me.
Some stuck not to question the sincerity of my intentions in coming
at first among the Quakers, urging with a why may it not be so, that
the desire and hopes of obtaining by that means so fair a fortune
might be the prime and chief inducement to me to thrust myself
amongst that people? But this surmise could find no place with
those worthy friends of mine, her father-in-law and her mother, who,
besides the clear sense and sound judgment they had in themselves,
knew very well upon what terms I came among them, how strait and
hard the passage was to me, how contrary to all worldly interest,
which lay fair another way, how much I had suffered from my father
for it, and how regardless I had been of attempting or seeking
anything of that nature in these three or four years that I had been
amongst them.
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